


How long a time

by amonitrate



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:50:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: In the beginning was the word.





	How long a time

**Author's Note:**

> This was a draft for the "word" challenge on [](http://community.livejournal.com/writers_choice/profile)[](http://community.livejournal.com/writers_choice/)**writers_choice**
> 
> * * *
> 
> written circa 2006

_How long a time lies in one little word?_  
William Shakespeare

In the beginning was the word.

Well, not exactly. He can remember a time without the word. Without words as an abstraction. Symbols on a page, forced to represent a complexity they can never completely convey.

They keep becoming more abstracted, words. Until they mean nothing, worse than nothing – until they mean the opposite of their original intention.

More and more he finds himself missing the concreteness of words. He has to remind himself that it has always been this way.

They have filled his life, driven his livelihood, sentenced him to death, made formal his love, opened his mind, closed his heart, started and ended countless friendships. They have hidden and exposed him. Crushed his hope and lifted him from despair. He's used words as delicately as a scalpel. He's used them to bludgeon, to terrorize. They've come to his defense when nothing else worked. They've failed him, over and over and over again, in ways only an Immortal can understand.

Words are a comfort, when nothing else is. His fingers trace them, knowing they're the only way he can leave something behind. A mark on the world. Even if his long story will probably be taken as fantasy.

The shapes drift and rearrange. Become lost to time. Are translated so poorly all he can do is laugh. Sometimes the knowledge that he is the only one who still understands is a heavy burden. A burden that lightens when he remembers that some remain a mystery, even to him.

He's tried to go without, to live in silence, to cease his restless notations. It never lasts long. He can't escape his love for them. For words.  


* * *


End file.
